So far we know that there will be a currency called "skymetal" we can purchase for real world money, and used for microtransactions. My question is what kind of things would people like to see, or NOT see be available through their Skymetal purchases.

This is kind of a thread to throw out your ideas, and discuss said ideas to kind of give the devs a feel for where the community is leaning, and maybe bring up some idea's they haven't thought of.

One thing I discussed in a topic, the name of which I have long since forgotten is the ability to use skymetal to purchase abnormal character features. The main one I am thinking of is unusual heights but this really could be applied to any character feature that is meant to remain uncommon.

As someone who is 6'7" in real life I really like my human characters to be tall. It's part of my identity and it helps me relate to my characters better. The problem is if you allow everyone to choose their height, ~80% of people max it. So allowing that really doesn't so give players a choice of height so much as making the average player character a giant. Something I would like to see is taller character models offered for skymetal, which will mean 1 of 2 scenarios.

1. Only people who care about their characters being tall will make them tall.
2. Everyone will purchase tall characters and GW will make a ton of money off it.

Another thing I think would be really worth it is protection for structures. The protection your structures get should be equal to what you would normally have if you invested in-game time into structure upkeep, but these items would require no time investment. So it would maintain your structure, keep it from being marked as abandoned, keep your defences in order etc.

The point of this would be to make it so if you are going on a vacation, you can purchase some structure protection and not worry about it so much when you are gone. People don't want their inns, farms, homes, etc. to all be gone with they get back from boot camp, deployment, a major illness, an extended vacation, or school/work pressures.

These items would allow those people to invest a bit to see their structures protected, while still allowing for a decay system that will destroy inactive structures and/or allow them to be more easily seized by other players.

I would personally make it so the costs of doing so go like this:

Month 1: 5$
Month 2: 10$
Month 3: 15$
Month 4: 20$
Month 5: 25$

Having no protection for a month resets it. That way people don't abuse the system to gain constant protection if they are actually playing the game, or if they do... again. GW makes bank.

The microtransactions that I will always be happy with are vanity items. Changed looks on buildings, animals, abilities, items, etc. If someone wants to spend five or ten dollars a piece on a bunch of things to make their average necromancer into the most impressive looking winner on the planet, with wings of smoke and flame and footsteps of lava and all kinds of other shiny shenanigans, great.

Potentially some sort of 'retraining' would be feasible as well to fix mistakes - so if you decide you don't like a training decision, you could spend $2 to untrain a month's worth of skills (needs to be well put together to avoid abuse), and get triple speed training for the next 2 weeks.

I pretty much agree with Alexander Damocles, besides the retraining thing (If someone came up with a solid fault with that, which good design can't fix, I'd retract it).

@Andius - I think you could probably find a friendly who would cheerfully run your business for a share of the profits. You could potentially even set up quests to do it.

Really not a big fan of re-training unless there are a ton of things like capstones that block your progress in one direction if you take your character in another.

@Waffle- You could... but I think it might be harder than you think to find someone who will run all your affairs when you are gone. It's hard to say without details on structure decay and building destruction/takeovers but I think the system I'm proposing could be a pretty good deal.

@Alexander- I agree that most things should be very cosmetic in nature. Microtransactions should not have any significant effect on the economy or provide anyone with much of a mechanical advantage. I think there are a lot of creative ideas that can fit into those two criteria though, and maybe even be enhance the game. There is a fine line between the game offering things alluring enough to cause players to spend money on skymetal, and exploiting the players for every last penny they can get out of the by making MT items so useful you are at a noticeable disadvantage without them, or making huge amounts of content required them. If they can't balance it right GW may have to use MTs I consider unethical or a rip off in order to pay the bills. That makes me a lot more open to ideas that don't contain major content or significant mechanical advantages.

@Chuck- Initially I was fairly opposed to race changes. I really don't want it to be easy for people to change things like their race, gender, name etc. Now that I think about it though... as long as the price tag was stiff enough I would actually support it. Stiff enough that someone who just felt like a change of pace wouldn't do it unless they were pretty loaded, but someone who was very upset with their racial choice to the point they might even consider re-rolling would have that option.

Andius - The reason that I bring it up is that there's such a time-investment for character improvement, that if a preferred race weren't available at launch you wouldn't have to start over simply to changer your race.

Exotic casual outfits, mostly, though that kinda makes me wonder if we get to start with "an outfit worth 10 gp or less", just as we get to do in the tabletop game and like how everyone starts with a "city" outfit in Guild Wars 2.

1. Cheaper (but limited) skill training packages(only eligible if you're paying a monthly subscription) for experimentation purposes or for skills you want an alt to have, so you don't slow down the advancement of your main toon.
2. The ability to remove the most recent merit badge gained in an archetype. So if people (particlarally those newer to PFO) make a mistake and gain an additional archetype or prestige class after the first, then later realise they will be disqualified for the capstone ability in their main archetype.

1. Cheaper (but limited) skill training packages(only eligible if you're paying a monthly subscription) for experimentation purposes or for skills you want an alt to have, so you don't slow down the advancement of your main toon.
2. The ability to remove the most recent merit badge gained in an archetype. So if people (particlarally those newer to PFO) make a mistake and gain an additional archetype or prestige class after the first, then later realise they will be disqualified for the capstone ability in their main archetype.

Along the lines of modules I've always thought of the best way to do them would be the equivalent of an illusionary holodeck. What if it were possible for some modules, to offer alternate characters of different classes, general builds etc... as a sort of way for people to get the feel or idea of a role, in an environment that does not effect the general game.

Similar in concept to the Iconics that are included in purchased adventures

2. The ability to remove the most recent merit badge gained in an archetype. So if people (particlarally those newer to PFO) make a mistake and gain an additional archetype or prestige class after the first, then later realise they will be disqualified for the capstone ability in their main archetype.

Your Pathfinder Online Character wrote:

We also wanted to capture the idea from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that dedication to one path would have additional benefits. Therefore, if your character chooses to stay committed to one of these archetypes until it has achieved all 20 archetype merit badges, your character will earn an additional capstone ability! (A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archtype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!

I think they've already accounted for that--if you decide to train outside your role, it will just that, a decision.

2. The ability to remove the most recent merit badge gained in an archetype. So if people (particlarally those newer to PFO) make a mistake and gain an additional archetype or prestige class after the first, then later realise they will be disqualified for the capstone ability in their main archetype.

Your Pathfinder Online Character wrote:

We also wanted to capture the idea from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that dedication to one path would have additional benefits. Therefore, if your character chooses to stay committed to one of these archetypes until it has achieved all 20 archetype merit badges, your character will earn an additional capstone ability! (A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archtype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!

I think they've already accounted for that--if you decide to train outside your role, it will just that, a decision.

This is true. And in an ideal world everyone would read and fully understand the implications of their decisions. Sadly this isn't always the case.

I think they've already accounted for that--if you decide to train outside your role, it will just that, a decision.

This is true. And in an ideal world everyone would read and fully understand the implications of their decisions. Sadly this isn't always the case.

True, but depending on the clarity of the warning etc... it can weed out all but the least intelligent.

IE a tiny footnote, an asterisk next to the skill with a footnote you have to scroll down for, that is a common mistake many beginers will miss.

A huge pop-up message with "Warning, this will disqualify you for the fighter capstone, THIS DECISION CANNOT BE REVERSED" followed by a second similar vein warning pretty much negates any possible excuse, and 99.99% of people who are that poor at reading warnings, will not make it the 2.5 years needed for the issue to come up.

Andius - The reason that I bring it up is that there's such a time-investment for character improvement, that if a preferred race weren't available at launch you wouldn't have to start over simply to changer your race.

Good point. One easy way to achieve this would be to make it so say we only start with humans, elves, and dwarves. When halflings, dwarves, half-orcs, half elves, etc. start coming out you could either make them drastically cheaper or maybe even free to change to for a little while. When more exotic races start coming out I would make them cheaper to change to for a bit but not free or anywhere near it.

A huge pop-up message with "Warning, this will disqualify you for the fighter capstone, THIS DECISION CANNOT BE REVERSED"...

This still won't mean much if a new player doesn't understand what a Capstone ability is. Although, I'm not sure that being able to remove a single earned Merit Badge would significantly alter the number of players who get burned by this.

A huge pop-up message with "Warning, this will disqualify you for the fighter capstone, THIS DECISION CANNOT BE REVERSED"...

This still won't mean much if a new player doesn't understand what a Capstone ability is. Although, I'm not sure that being able to remove a single earned Merit Badge would significantly alter the number of players who get burned by this.

I don't think it would make sense for the devs to go to the trouble of putting in a warning, but then making the warning cryptic. That would be self-defeating.

I think the point is that, no matter how much effort the devs put into trying to make everything crystal clear, there is still the possibility that a player may not realize the ramifications of the decision.

It's not that there's a high likelihood of someone making the mistake. It's that, once the mistake is made, it's not possible to recover from it.

1) Tabards in WoW actually gave a mechanical benefit. You gained fame with whatever faction they displayed the emblem for, and whenever you were at max Fame, you switched it out for another one (and when all your fame was maxed out from tabards, you probably walked around with some random trophy tabard that a bazillion other people also had because they were doing the same damned thing).

2) The armor in WoW was horrendously gaudy, so you ended up having most of your attention dragged away from whatever Tabard you wore towards your ever-increasingly bigger shoulder pads and belts (the excuse being that the bigger they were, the better it was for the art team), not helped AT ALL by one or two cases of the chest of a particular race's wire frame being poorly done (like the male Worgen) or perfectly molded to the shape of ANY female's boobs, which just further made the tabard designs hard to see.

Any Tabards they make in PFO hopefully will not fall into the same issues as the ones from WoW; have them be, pretty much, the ONLY tabards you can wear, aside from maybe ones that have the emblem for a particular deity (I dunno if a tabard can count mechanically as a holy symbol, but whatever).

1. I really hope company heraldry is not done through microtransactions. Heraldry isn't just fluff in a sandbox where the factions go deeper than Alliance vs. Horde. They give an actual benefit in that they allow you to easily distinguish friends from foes. I would like to see people actually use their heraldry, and I even intend to make it mandatory for people taking part in Great Legionnaire's military actions. But I'm not going to make it mandatory if that requires people to spend a bunch of money on it. So if any investment is required it needs to be at the company/settlement/kingdom level. Not the players.

2. I hope we aren't limited to tabards or capes. I hope we see tabards, capes, cloaks, banners, paint jobs for sheilds etc. Give people options on how to display their colors, or let them use multiple options to make themselves more easily visible. Not only will this give us more creative control, but if Great Legionnaires is fighting Knights of Darkness, and both of our company's use gold and green as our main colors... we could still be distinguishable. If GL uses capes/cloaks and shield paint to distinguish ourselves, and they use tabards and banners, we might still be able to tell each other apart.

1. I really hope company heraldry is not done through microtransactions. Heraldry isn't just fluff in a sandbox where the factions go deeper than Alliance vs. Horde. They give an actual benefit in that they allow you to easily distinguish friends from foes. I would like to see people actually use their heraldry, and I even intend to make it mandatory for people taking part in Great Legionnaire's military actions. But I'm not going to make it mandatory if that requires people to spend a bunch of money on it.

If heraldry is a mechanic in the game, it can't be a meta-mechanic. Imposters, ex-members, etc. should be an issue, not just a magic-from-the-sky marker for friends.

I expect they'll offer a variety of mounts with unique appearances but no significant advantage over "normal" mounts. I think that - and other offerings like that - is just fine. It gives people an opportunity to spend a lot of money without gaining mechanical advantages.

Cosmetic or not they still tend to influence design (not saying they will in PFO). If all items are plain and unattractive leading most to spend extra cash on them, that is wrong in my book. If I pay a sub I expect to have access to everything the game has to offer. That includes best looking items, bank slots, mounts, etc. And, selling mounts with run speed is a form of selling advantage to those that can afford it. Why invest time in game for a inferior item when you can buy run speed in the shop? And, why does it sound like a good idea to reward those people over those that invest the time in game with a "better looking" mount?

Or to put it another way, why would anyone invest so much time and gold or whatever into a mount when for some rl cash you can have one on day one, being that much ahead of others in character development, freeing up game currency and time for other things, with a better appearance then doing it the normal way allows you to achieve. There is no incentive to playing, just click, pay, win.

It sends the wrong message to gamers. Call me crazy and old fashioned, but I prefer games to reward me for PLAYING them, not PAYING them.

@Izzlyn, Goblinworks needs to be able to make money somehow to keep improving the game. Ryan can go on at length about the failure of the subscription model to properly fund these kinds of enterprises.

I dont have a problem with paying a monthly subscription (as long as its resonable), along with some fluff or very-minimal beneficial items/ usable items/cosmetics.

Cosmetic upgrades to animal companions/mounts would be interesting. Im not suggessting really weird mounts, but more detailed mounts, different colours, longer manes. It could even be kool if the mounts had additional sound effects - like whinnying, snorts and whatnot.

Sure, I agree with that 100%. I want game developers to be profitable. Tho I have my own ideas on how to make that possible.

Offer products and merchandise in the cash shop, even e-lore books would sell well I think. 5-10 dollar customer service fee (this is a big overhead cost of mmo's and I am willing to pay for the service). It would also hopefully limit bogus claims and help keep the overhead to a minimum as well as fund itself. As before, character services, even character appearance changes can have a nominal fee. Raise sub to cover rising costs, 20-25 dollars a month is still nothing in the entertainment industry. Additional server fees if not included in subscription cost. And, lastly, and most importantly, make games worth buying and playing.

The idea behind ftp was originally to get people to try your game, and if willing, and if they felt the game was worth it, commit to the sub fee, or buy features and content they wanted as piece meal. Nothing wrong with that. Limit their access, offer piece meal content. Make it so the most rewarding features come from long term commitment and actually playing the game.

But I firmly believe everything should be straight forward cost wise.
Box fee should pay for the entire game, content, features, items etc.
Sub fee should pay for future game development and server maintenance.
CS fee, character services, etc should cover those costs.
Cash shops should generate extra revenue from those unwilling to commit to sub fee, or merchandise sales.
Charge for forums and out of game features such character bio sheets, blog/story hosting, or the integration page Ryan spoke of.

There is no need to depend solely on cash shop item sales and cash shop development to fund all of these expenses. Let us pay for the services we desire to use, and keep in game rewards for cash to a minimum. And, above all should be the game play experience being the most important and rewarding aspect, not some bonus item in a marketplace.

If developers went back to that, then the money would flow once again. I personally spent $400 bucks on the last single player game I bought and got every penny worth in gameplay or real world merchandise. The last mmo I payed $60 for was rubbish and have not spent a dime in the shop even tho they have gone to great lengths to make it more rewarding to spend extra for "fluff" or "convenience" items than actually making a game that I want to play more.

Actually, stuff like lore documents would be all sorts of cool. An item that is readable in game that tells a good story about the past, etc. Not a novel, but short stories would be great. Purchased with skymetal (or gold), heck, make them lootable. I would *love* to see actual value for in-game lore items.

Real simple for me: anything as long as there is no mechanical benefit.

Example of Good:

-- Pay to buy a "5-pack Grey Dye Kit" = I can 'dye' 5 items grey.

Example of Bad:

-- Pay to by a "+1 Damage Bonus" = I add to 1 weapon to get +1 damage.

That's basically it. The ONLY exception I would LOVE to see, is the option for me to "buy" a new character of up to my highest level character in game (say, $1 / level). So if I had played a character up to level 14, I could roll up a new character as a level 2 - 14 character for $2 - $14.

The ONLY exception I would LOVE to see, is the option for me to "buy" a new character of up to my highest level character in game (say, $1 / level). So if I had played a character up to level 14, I could roll up a new character as a level 2 - 14 character for $2 - $14.

I would not like this at all. That looks way too dangerously close to a "pay to win" kind of transaction and at the same time, it's kind of impossible, given how archetypes are structured.

You don't pick a class and gain levels in it. You pick a skill you wanna work on, and then work on it until you qualify for a level in a class. Plus, it's supposed to take a long time to get a character up to level 20; two and a half years is the projected time frame. There's no more challenge to the game if you could just get one character to level 20, and then pay to have every other character you make up to that level.

Play one character to 20? That is 2.5 years, or 30 months of effort. Lets call it 5 dollars a month of skill training time. That is 150 they'll want out of you for that. Since you are purchasing something, they would want to raise the price a good bit, so call it $200 dollars minimum.

I agree. No paying for characters with skills. If you want an alt, you should have to start from the beginning. Some character trading will happen anyway, but I hope that they are trying to catch and ban those accounts, not offering new ones for 20$ or even 200$ a pop.

I agree. No paying for characters with skills. If you want an alt, you should have to start from the beginning. Some character trading will happen anyway, but I hope that they are trying to catch and ban those accounts, not offering new ones for 20$ or even 200$ a pop.

I agree 100% with this post. Please dont allow people to buy new 'high' skill characters.

Cosmetic stuff only, for me. Cloaks (with friggin hoods), badges, clothes, boots, designable tabards, backpacks, cosmetic armor kits etc. Cosmetic options like that will definitely go along way towards keeping many of us from feeling like we're a mass gaggle of steroid freak babies whose only uniquely identifiable feature is what color NFL shoulderpads we wear (thanks Blizz). LOTRO did this quite well so its nothing that should make the art/design teams head explode.

... I would LOVE to see... the option for me to "buy" a new character of up to my highest level character in game...

I totally understand this desire. However, I think that the nature of PFO will make it unnecessary. For me, I always started feeling this way in games like WoW, where you have to grind through a bunch of levels. In PFO, you shouldn't really have that situation where you need to just grind away to level up your character.

Granted, you won't be as skilled as you want to be right off the bat, but I think there would be something terribly unbalancing if everyone could easily buy alts that would have just as many skill training points as their highest main. Imagine the situation when you have the first Capstone characters, and then suddenly - poof! - they all have every Role with a Capstone.